Information Bulletin

Summary of Publications and News This Week - 25 July 2014

JRF Activity
Blog from Helen Barnard - Should large families face benefit sanctions?

Blog from Sumi Rabindrakumar at Gingerbread - Getting just five per cent more single
parents into work could save the government 436 million.
Poverty
The role of the jobcentre should be split into a central citizen support centre, so that wider
barriers to work can be addressed together, rather than by separate services, recommends
a new report from the Policy Exchange. A separate body would offer the employment
support, operated as a public service mutual or social enterprise, subject to competition with
other private and third sector firms. Joined Up Welfare: The next steps for personalisation.

An independent review of benefit sanctions, commissioned by the DWP, criticises the way
they are administered and imposed, the poor communication with claimants, the burden put
on vulnerable people and the failure to inform claimants about hardship payments. Although
the report was confined to sanctions for the mandatory back-to-work schemes, which only
cover a third of the claimants at risk of sanctions, the report said its 17 recommendations
were relevant to the entire benefits system. The DWP has agreed to set up a group to
examine all types of communication with claimants and to clarify guidance on providing
access to hardship payments.

The Employment Support Allowance system has grave errors in it and should be
fundamentally redesigned before the provider contract is next tendered in 2018, says a new
report from the MPs of the Work and Pensions Committee. In particular, it criticises the
simplistic nature of the current outcomes of the ESA claims process, which cover too wide a
spectrum of claimants with very different prognoses and employment support needs. The
report also contains recommendations for short term changes to improve the service and
achieve more appropriate outcomes for claimants.

A new report from Gingerbread calls for a move away from inappropriate job search targets
and sanctions which hamper single parent jobseekers, more investment in skills and training
for single parents and the re-introduction of specialist lone parent advisers. It also
recommends the urgent introduction of the 85% childcare support under tax credits as an
interim measure, until universal credit is fully rolled out. Paying the Price: the long road to
recovery.

Although the best academy chain schools outperform other state schools, almost half the 31
academy chains surveyed by the Sutton Trust failed to do better than mainstream local
authority schools in getting their disadvantaged pupils to obtain five A* - C GCSEs including
maths and English. Disadvantaged students in 18 of the 31 chains, however, were found to
be improving faster than the national average.

Modest interest rate rises and unevenly distributed growth among household income groups
has the potential to double the number of households facing a debt repayment problem by
2018, concludes a new report from the Resolution Foundation, Hangover Cure: dealing with
the household debt overhang as interest rates rise.





Workers on a zero hours contracts should be given a statutory right to request a contract
that guarantees hours, without fear of dismissal, says a new report from Citizens Advice
Scotland, Working at the Edge: zero hours contracts. Issues reported by CAB advisers in
Scotland include very few working hours over a period of weeks causing destitution, debt &
budgeting problems due to fluctuating income, and problems claiming in-work benefits with
no proof of a set number of hours.

A new CIPD report suggests a reduction in youth unemployment could be sustained if
employers adopted more targeted recruitment strategies to reach 18-24 year olds. The
report concludes that more action is needed including more employer use of social media for
recruitment, changing employers misconceptions about apprenticeships, building employer
relationships with local schools and colleges and mentoring programmes. Employers:
Learning to Work with young people.

The government should make an investment to extend basic digital skills to all of the UK
population by 2020 sharing the costs with relevant businesses and charities, plus a 20m
investment by 2020 to embed the new computing curriculum in schools across England,
recommends a report from the UK Digital Skills Taskforce. It also recommends computing
should be given the status of a fourth core science and apprenticeship schemes should be
simplified so that more digital businesses invest in apprentices.

The lack of flexible childcare is continuing to be a barrier to employment for parents, in the
face of growing trends in the labour market such as unstable or irregular hours and self-
employment, finds an investigation by the CAB. It found that over a third of childcare
providers charge a fine for picking up a child late and over half require one months notice to
change arrangements. Also, more than half of childminders, one of the most flexible options,
did not offer parents the option of claiming the fifteen hours of support recently extended by
the Coalition. The Practicalities of Childcare: an overlooked part of the puzzle?

Place
Department of Energy and Climate Change has launched a new consultation Cutting the
cost of keeping warm to inform a new fuel poverty strategy for England. The consultation
closes on 7 October 2014. DECC also plans to create a new fuel poverty target in law,
where the aim will be to move as many fuel poor homes as is reasonably practicable to a
minimum energy efficiency standard of Band C, by 2030. The new target has been heavily
criticised by fuel poverty campaigners for being meaningless and too loose.

The new Green Deal cashback scheme has run out of funds after just six weeks. Earlier this
week, it was announced that the maximum cashback available to new applicants was to be
reduced by 2,000, after 12,000 applications were received. A further surge in applications
over the next two days mean the 120 million scheme is now out of funds.

Eight housing associations have joined forces with not for profit organisation My Home
Finance, to offer a short term credit product to their tenants.

In its report on the role of housing in rebalancing the economy, IPPR's recommendations
include the development of sub-regional housing boards, working alongside local enterprise
partnerships to act as a joint strategic planning authority across functional economic areas,
alignment of an areas residential offer with its economic growth plans, use of local
procurement and employment in significant housing developments and raising HRA
borrowing caps for local authorities. 'Home Economics: the role of housing in rebalancing the
economy'.



A new RSA report Developing Socially Productive Places: learning from what works draws
on examples of good practice presented at the RSA conference in April.

Only 3% of those buying a house in June were aged between 18 and 30, the lowest
percentage ever recorded, according to the monthly report from the National Association of
Estate Agents. The proportion of under 35s who own a home fell from 21% in 2008-09 to
18% in 2012-13, while 25-35 year olds who privately rent grew from 31% to 45%, according
to the latest English Housing Survey.

Shelter has reported that one third of calls to its helpline are now going unanswered due to a
lack of capacity, following a 20% increase in calls to its helpline since 2011 and a doubling of
the number of calls about rent arrears.

A blog from shelter interprets the latest homelessness prevention and relief statistics and
explains why they hide the true scale of the problem.

An Ageing Society
Everyone with defined contribution pension savings will have a new right to free and
impartial guidance, according to the outcome of the governments consultation Freedom and
choice in pensions. All defined contribution providers will be required to offer flexibilities to
members and the reforms announced in the budget will take effect from April 2015.
Individuals can choose whether to purchase an annuity, withdraw a lump sum or all of their
pension savings, or keep their pension invested in a drawdown product and access it over
time.

Contrary to the current dominant view that they are a poor investment, a new paper from the
International Longevity Centre argues that many lifetime annuities actually offer fair value for
money. It concludes that risk aversion assessment is a key part of receiving financial advice
and given the uncertainty longevity poses for retirees, there is a strong case for retaining
annuity products in the range of options. Whither UK annuities? Why lifetime annuities
should still be part of good financial advice in the post-pension-liberalisation world

ONS figures on inequality of healthy life expectancy for 2010-12 show the highest HLE for
women was 71 years (Wokingham) and 70 years for men (Richmond Upon Thames), while
the lowest for women was 55.5 years (Manchester) and 52.5 for men (Tower Hamlets).
Overall, a north south divide is still in evidence.

In a new urban audit a publication by the ONS finds that Britain has higher concentrations
of older people living in suburbs than in urban areas, unlike most other European countries.
It highlights the importance of addressing issues around isolation and access to transport
and services, which may become more pronounced in an ageing population.

North Yorkshire County Council is planning to consult on a new care strategy which would
include the creation over 50 housing schemes, as part of the extra care programme to meet
the needs of people with dementia. The schemes would in the centre of communities and
the extra care schemes could be a base for other community services. A public consultation
will be held from August to November with a final strategy expected early in 2015.

Short BBC interview with Lord Best, president of the Local Government Association on how
encouraging older people to downsize their home, could help solve the housing crisis in
London.



This Information Bulletin is produced on a weekly basis as an update for staff at the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation (JRF) and the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT) for the purposes of their work it is
not intended to be comprehensive but represents a selection of news and reports appearing in the
last week. The items contained in this Bulletin are for information only and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the JRF and JRHT.